The South is a big region in a big country.That's the main thing. We're "so deep into that landscape we did not realize/ we'd been talking in accents all our lives"
--Pierce Pettis, "Little River Canyon"

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Wettest Place in Dixie

My sweet husband recently took me on an anniversary vacation to a property he first showed me on TripAdvisor. Before I left on this adventure, I read about the place from previous tenants. "It is a shame they can't do something about the neighbors' dogs, maybe
sue the neighbors for nuisance. The dogs bark at various times
throughout the night; one starts and then there are dogs barking in the
front, back, and side of the house. With the dogs, roosters, and frogs,
it was hard to get much sleep; we tried closing the bedroom windows but
then it was hot because there is no air conditioning." Another reviewer referred to the "rednecks with the dogs" in less than glowing terms.

Other highlights: These folks eat a lot of pit-cooked pork, and when they get too overrun by chickens they hunt them down--maybe with all those hunting dogs--and smoke/grill the birds in an old oil drum. They will sell you some if you stop and ask nicely.

We are vegans but they asked us if we wanted to buy some anyway. We declined, but we did buy some tomatoes. They use the honor system. They put the tomatoes out with a money jar. You pick out some tomatoes and then put some money in the jar.

Those who know us and what we have considered our perfect vacation spots in the past will think we have probably returned to the Outer Banks. We used to rent a great old two story frame house at Rodanthe and invite all our friends to come for supper. We especially wanted them to come if they'd had any luck fishing that day.

For directions, we'd begin: "You know where that run down store is that sells bait and local backfin crabmeat?"

They always knew.

"Well slow down when you get there and start looking for some rusted out junk cars and roosters scratching in the dirt because that's where you'll turn left."

They would ask "Well what's the name of the street? Isn't there a street sign?"

Silly people. If there was a street sign, would my husband have rented the property? Hardly.

For this special anniversary trip, he used the same criteria. Loose chickens running wild, junk cars, rough and winding roads barely one lane wide, houses identified by the number on the closest electric service pole: some things just spell Home.

I was instructed to pack my hiking boots, plenty of DEET, and my mask and snorkle. Plus I was handed boarding passes for a very long plane ride. When we got off the plane in the Lihue airport, we knew we were in for a hassle renting a car because we had been through this song and dance before. The rental car people know you have just been through the Hadean realm of plane travel and with a dark sense of humor like to pull out their own versions of a cattle prod.

But there are worse fates than overcoming jet lag in a tropical paradise rain forest with your own private horseshoe beach just a short walk down the hill and the view you see from the deck and windows of every room is the 5,000 ft. tall mountains of Kaua'i. We had been up in those mountains several years ago, hiking to Mt. Waialeale, the wettest spot on earth, with its average of over 39 feet of rain every year.Now we had the perfect view of its mists and double rainbows.

And yes, the dogs sang. Every night right before sunset, the thirty or so hunting dogs we assume were visited by their owner because they set out on a wild multi-layered meet-and-greet chorus. Mainly, that was just a loud advertisement for the main event. The very first night we were there, the moon popped out after midnight, and the lead dog--a soprano!--lectured in song. What notes she hit! What stories she told! The frogs had abandoned their long jack-hammer drone long before she stepped up to the challenge. Back in Alabama, this girl would be the virtuoso of Coon Dogs. She would earn a prime spot in the Coon Dog Cemetery. A hunter would have to be deaf not to hear what this woman was telling him.

Down the road at the National Tropical Botanical Garden (The Limahuli Garden and Preserve), we learned that all those roosters that started crowing every morning about 3 AM were in fact "jungle fowl". Yes indeed, Jungle Fowl. We appreciated having that fact cleared up for us.Here is how I know there is a direct link between outback Kaua'i and Dixie: in Lihu'e or Kapa'a, Hanalei or Wainiha, you can buy Spam in any little store you come to. Now tell me you are a Southerner but have no idea what Spam is.

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Website: www.amgarner.com

Video of Co. Rd 14 Tour

View the new video with me narrating a tour of County Rd. 14 at www.amgarner.com and click on HEAR ANITA.

Frank's Peas

Talking in Accents: Diversity in Southern Fiction

It is easy to make up characters who live in double-wide mobile homes, wear beehive hairdos and feed caps, never put a 'g' on the end of a participle...; who aspire only to own a bass boat, eat something fried, speak in tongues. What is difficult is to take the poor, the uneducated, the superstitious, the backward, the redneck...and make them real human beings, with hopes and dreams and aspirations. Tony Earley

Other places to visit (and don't forget to take the County Road 14 Photo Tour, right after POSTS)

UNDENIABLE TRUTHS

The Southland with Blue Sky

County Road 2 Tour

When you turn onto County Rd. 2 in early September, look for the Dove Hunt signs, which mean that on the following Saturday, a dove hunt will be organized in one of the fields.

Dove Hunt Here

Drive through five or so miles of rolling fields and suddenly you find you have arrived at the scene of the Dove Hunt. A truck is parked near the main road (Co. Rd. 2) and a man sits at a table, signing in participants and spelling out the rules. The hunt takes place in the large fields where corn has been harvested. (You can see the stubble around the Dove Hunt Here sign.) The doves love to scavenge the fields for spilled grain.

Cotton on Gunwaleford Road

The view from the front doors of the church.

Sunrise: Picking Peas off County Rd. 2

Drive five or six more miles through County Rd. 2's fields and you'll come to a crossroads.I got this shot just as the sun was peaking over the horizon in one of the big fields off Gunwaleford Rd. ( County Rd. 2 is also called Gunwaleford Road.) Frank Johnson's ancestors lived on this land while it was still a reservation. He plants a large field every year in corn and another in the best purple-hulled peas you've ever eaten. When the corn and, later, peas are ready to harvest, he starts calling all the neighbors. The best thing to do is to get up before dawn to pick peas. The fields are cool and the only sound is the breeze. It took my husband and me two hours to pick plenty of peas to eat now and freeze for later. The morning glories climb the stalks of the pea plants.

Morning glory

The peas in the fields are covered in morning glories that are open for sun rise.

Pea Sheller

Spending two hours picking peas is one thing. Spending eight hours shelling them is another. My suggestion: take them to the pea shelling machine. Other cool stuff at this store: sticky paper spider traps, local honey, good waterproof duck hunting boots. The proprietor is a friendly guy who will give you helpful hints about pea picking and how to store the peas spread out to dry overnight for the best results from the pea shelling machine.

Coldwater Seed and Supply

Home of the pea sheller. OK, technically you have to drive back into town for this, but if you've picked several bushels of peas, believe me, it's worth it.

The Lake Winks Silver

Further out Gunwaleford Road is Sunset Beach on the Tennessee River, within sight of the Natchez Trace bridge. This part of the Tennessee is Pickwick Lake, smallmouth bass heaven. The large hybrid striped bass also have seasonal runs. Catfish up to 100 lbs. have been caught in the locks at Pickwick Dam. Windsurfing days are best in spring and early fall when the seasonal changes bring wind warnings for area lakes.

Coon Dog Cemetery

Continuing the tour, bring a camera, a cooler, and some tick spray. It's a short ride to the Coon Dog Cemetery.

Head stone at the Coon Dog Cemetery

If you take Co. Rd. 2 all the way to the Natchez Trace Bridge and then follow the Trace across the Tennessee River, you will enter Colbert County where the Coon Dog Cemetery is found.

Head stone at the Coon Dog Cemetery

I can't imagine naming a dog High Pocket. When I'm naming a dog, I always try to envision what I would feel like calling the name loudly if the dog became lost. "Here, High Pocket." No, I don't think so. Too impersonal. But I love High Pocket's stone, love the way the dog is waiting on his/her master, or maybe just stretched out in the shade of the porch in an Alabama August. Someone really loved High Pocket.

November 1

They just couldn't leave

Some of the white pelicans stayed through the summer.

January

Thanksgiving Morning, 2014.

START YOUR TOUR with Coosa County Road 14

This just about sums it up. Literally and figuratively.

A Rocky Ford

Before there was a road, wagons forded the creek on these rocks. To the left just out of the frame is a large white sand bar. The bluff in the background climbs up a hundred feet or so and is covered in mountain laurel laced with wisps of Spanish moss. Where North Alabama meets South Alabama.

Geocaching. Sort of.

Locking in coordinates.

MORE COOSA. Geocaching, sort of.

Dovetailed logs on corner of cabin.

Interior logs

The cabin has log walls inside.

one of the deer paths

Ammonium nitrate makes the grass green and sweet

No one agrees when I say we should use the hose to spray off the mud

...standing beside muddy Jeep tires

Moss grows on the flat rocks

Waverly in Alabama

Waverly can play a reel fast and pure enough to make your heart spin.

Sears Chapel Church

Built right before the Civil War by my relatives who made furniture down the hill on Hatchett Creek, Sears Chapel held services only on the first Sunday of the Month. There was an outhouse, no air conditioning, plenty of wasps circling the light fixtures that hung from chains from the high ceilings. More often than not, we were late for services so we just drove on by and looked for somewhere to have Sunday lunch. Kowaliga was a favorite. Or barbecue at Cotton's. Growing up I kept my clothes in a pine wardrobe built by the same people who built the church. My daughter's dresses hang there today.

Coosa County Musicians

Think of this photo as you read "The Mayor of Nowhere" in UNDENIABLE TRUTHS.

Churchyard

This is where we're all buried. Except the ones who died before the church was built. They're buried out in the woods, and every twenty years or so, we visit the graves. To make sure they haven't just up and left.